The Thistle Rose and Shamrock Night

Around this time of year my life gets silted up with cooking, cleaning, wrapping, carols, nativity plays and some or other getting ill. I mean to post, and don't. I mean to email people and don't. I mean to get things wrapped up and cleared away, and who am I kidding?

So this year, before I get utterly Christmassed, I just want to say a few words about out poetry evening. We don't get many in Stirling - apart from the lovely mix of music and performance work that is Junk Jam anyway, so it was quite a scary thing to organise one. However, with the backing of some very fine poets (Stirling definitely punches above its weight on the actual writing front) and the excellent Burgh Coffeehouse who were so kind and so helpful, we took a deep breath and dived in.

I won't say we were packed to the rafters, because we weren't. But we did have a genuine audience, and some really great poetry. We had great tea, and rather wonderful cake (most of us will be back again for that). And the Burgh said they'd have us back. What more could you ask?

Besides myself, our poets were:

• Hazel Buchan Cameron(published by Red Squirrel)
• Anne Connolly (published by Red Squirrel)
• Richie McCaffery (published by Happenstance)
• Chris Powici (published by Die-Hard)
• Sheila Wakefield (published by Talking Pen)

And will we do it again? Watch this space!